Can Zimbabwe hold on?

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Zimbabwe went to the polls last week to decide on a new constitution for the struggling African country. Unfortunately, President Robert Mugabe appears unlikely to give up power.

The opposition leader, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, faces an uphill battle to succeed Mugabe through the democratic process. Thabani Mpofu, one of Tsvangirai's top aides, was arrested, along with a leading human-rights lawyer who arrived on the scene to act as his counsel.

The heavy-handedness of such overtly political arrests shows that Mugabe, 89, will fight tooth and nail to stay in office. Earlier, reports had also circulated that a local official in Tsvangirai's opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, had been kidnapped from his home.

Denigrating Mugabe is a crime in Zimbabwe, given his nearly unassailable position as “the head of state and government and commander-in-chief of the armed forces.” Human-rights lawyers are busy defending dozens of cases where critics of Mugabe have been arrested. As a result, police in Zimbabwe continue to target human-rights groups, conducting raids and arrests to intimidate them.

Opposition is a difficult and dangerous business in Zimbabwe. The 2008 election, in which Mugabe won his most recent re-election, was a particularly bloody affair, with 200 MDC supporters murdered during the campaign.

The purpose of current constitutional reform efforts is to curtail Mugabe's power and install more effective checks and balances among the various branches. In the absence of term limits, for example, Mugabe has been able for more than three decades to amass dictatorial powers.

Negotiations on the new constitution between Mugabe's government and the opposition have dragged on for four years, as debate over limits on presidential power slowed progress. Tellingly, the limit of two terms as president is not retroactive. As a result, Mugabe could be in power for another 10 years if he wins his next two re-elections.

All three principal political parties, including Mugabe's Zanu-PF, agreed to campaign in favor of the constitution. Given the economic problems in Zimbabwe, where an estimated unemployment rate of 70 percent has brought many parts of the country to a near standstill, official preparation for the constitutional referendum has been haphazard. Only a fraction of voters have received copies of the proposed constitution.

The real prize, of course, is the next presidential election, although a date has not yet been set.

If the recent public celebrations for Mugabe's 89th birthday are any indication, there is still a lot of fight in the president, even after 33 years in office. Giant birthday cakes and commemorative soccer tournaments were held in his honor.

Widespread poverty did not shift the focus of official activities. Instead, Mugabe reassured his country that he would win the next election. His stamina and health appear adequate for another campaign. It is hard to see what will be left of Zimbabwe if he stays in power much longer.

Perhaps surprisingly, Zimbabwe was once the second most-successful economy in Africa. Mugabe changed that. His policy of seizing land from white farmers was an attempt to secure his core supporters.

However, with such high unemployment, it is difficult to see how these land grabs have benefited the country. Zimbabwe today is near collapse. Mugabe clings to power by steadily ratcheting up the levels of oppression. Last month, his government went so far as to ban radios. Police are charged with finding them, in order to stop the “hate speech” coming in from the outside world.

Interestingly, the opposition MDC party under Tsvangirai has been actively distributing wind-up radios to the poorer rural areas of the country, where illiteracy is high, in an effort to keep them connected to international news sources, such as the BBC. Considering that even the Soviet Union wasn't able to make banning radios a successful long-term strategy, Mugabe seems to be slowly running out of options.

Interestingly, Mugabe's problems with his own sons' educations might hint at what is to come. Both his eldest son, Robert Jr., and his youngest, Bellarmine, were expelled from his alma mater, St. George's School in the capital, Harare, for indiscipline. Despite Mugabe's exceptional academic career there, and his perceived long-standing commitment to education, it seems as if his sons have grown up considerably more privileged and considerably less motivated.

Tsvangirai has said that he was willing to let Mugabe “die in peace” in order to make way for a freely elected government that can start working on real solutions to Zimbabwe's many problems. This olive branch has not convinced Mugabe or his supporters to loosen their grip on power.

Unfortunately, for Zimbabwe, it seems that Mugabe will hang on as long as he can.

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